Typesetting footnotes within footnotes as normal (footnote) text

Question

Sometimes when editing my text I move some part from the main text of my article into a footnote. Alas, the moved text may contain a footnote. Of course, I could just remove the footnote command, but then if I regret my move later on, I will not be able to easily reconstruct the original layout.

So, is there some automatic way of ignoring the footnote command within footnotes? I don't want to ignore the nested text, but rather have it printed with the rest of the footnote text.

Answer 1

EDIT: It should work now. Proceed with caution.

\documentclass{article}

\let\oldfootnote\footnote

\newcommand{\newfootnote}[1]{%
    \renewcommand{\footnote}[1]{ ##1}%
    \oldfootnote{#1}%
    \let\footnote\newfootnote
    }

\let\footnote\newfootnote

\begin{document}
    Lorem\footnote{Dolor\footnote{Sit\footnote{Amet}}}

    Loremish\footnote{Ipsumian\footnote{Dolorcin\footnote{Ameteus}}}
\end{document}

This hack should work and be plug-and-play. But it's still a hack.

Answer 2

This is a bad idea, sorry. TeXnically it may be possible to ignore the footnote command inside a footnote and nontheless print the text of the nested footnote.

"Let's say² you have this sentence." The text of the footnote were: "²Just for the sake of the argument."

Later you decide to move it into a footnote, you'd get this:

"³Let's say Just for the sake of the argument. you have this sentence."

Obviously you'd have to go over the text to avoid such nonsense, independently from the teXnically possible.

So if you move some text into a footnote, comment out the footnote command in the editor and -- of course -- the second bracket ("}") as well. If you change your mind later, rearrange the text and remove the comment signs, the "%".